SUPPLY CHAIN ARTICLES

• Biomanufacturing Capacity Crunch: It's The Supply Chain's Fault

  What's behind the protracted biopharma manufacturing capacity crunch, when will it end, and what are manufacturers doing to keep supply on track? During Biotech Week in Boston ad BioProcess International, CDMOs and sponsors weighed in.

• The mRNA Supply Chain Revolution: Materials, Methods, And Momentum

  mRNA innovation now hinges as much on manufacturing materials as on molecular design, with novel inputs shaping performance, cost, and scalability. As these less-mature materials move rapidly into production, strategic material selection and supplier alignment are becoming critical to manufacturing resilience and long-term success.

• The Price Is… Almost Right: mRNA Edition! COGS Reduction Strategies

  The following article will outline the current state of COGS in the mRNA industry and the work he and his colleagues undertook to more effectively utilize raw materials. But heaven forbid this be your normal conference panel write-up. No, below I share Parrella’s insights, but in the form of a never-before released episode of The Price is Right…or perhaps more fittingly given the state of the industry today, this spectacle is more aptly titled: The Price is…Sort Of, Almost, Not Quite Right! 

• “To Thine Own [mRNA Product] Be True:” Shakespeare's Guide To RNA GMP Principles

  In the following article, I offer some of the biggest tips and tricks experts offered during a panel discussion on the challenges of navigating GMP principles in the RNA space today — with a little bit of help from Shakespeare himself. 

• Inside Alnylam's Playbook For High Volume siRNA Production

  As one of the first companies to establish a chemoenzymatic ligation platform, Alnylam's Maines and Nechev are in the perfect position to espouse wisdom on the practical aspects and remaining challenges of implementing enzymatic ligation at a large scale. Here in this installment, Maines and Nechev outline what they’ve learned thus far about the science of enzymatic ligation, while also paying credence to the unknowns and existing barriers that, as a frontrunner, Alnylam will inevitably (but willingly) be tasked with facing in the future.

• What Violin Making Can Teach Us About mRNA Therapeutic Quality

  Managing the mRNA supply chain and working in mRNA process development may not look anything like the work a luthier does to hew an instrument from an ancient spruce tree. But violin craftmanship actually serves as a fantastic metaphor for the challenging work the mRNA therapeutics space is tackling in sourcing and qualifying raw materials and optimizing the critical IVT reaction.